Foxconn Workers Want More Overtime

12/17/2012 11:27PM

Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn, pledged to limit overtime for its workers to no more than nine hours a week. The WSJ's Paul Mozur explains why some workers are upset about what the company regards as an improvement in working conditions. Photo: Getty

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... the ... the company that makes components for Apple apps that workers when it announced it with capping overtime pay ... joining me now is reporter Paul danger from Beijing ... I think all this is a little ... surprising is it not given the fact that ... these are the factories where that have a lot of problems out with work or sit aside and ... have since then it tried to ... make life a lot better ... shortening working hours and and you know like digging thanks for being working hours ... the debt woes due in part due to the fact that this this that you know Foxconn or HUN Jai ... is endangered you know aam it concluded the Deb's the assembled the IBD products for Apple they've really been in the limelight more than most other factory so ... if you walk around change and even so the other tech areas conditions a lot of other factories ... are seen in your seen to be worse ... than that Foxconn and if you talk to labor groups there as well ... bill stayed the same thing so Foxconn kind of you know ... that a little bit of you know unfair attention aam but it's ten Ally Unit since the two thousand and suicides ... I'd to fix things aam you need a band aid ... said the new mental health center in the lead people to serve applied to live in the same dorms together your friends said that a bunch of different things then earlier this year they opened up either in their church that this into three different campuses actually ... too well what it spent the Fair Labor Association so ... um they basically at that point said when that when when that one of the bunch and uses the to do a number of new steps in one of those states are to take over time down from about eighty in a bikini twenty hours a week it once was ... Q I just nine hours a week which is what yet needle in it ... I in China is the problem is that that means that ... you know it gets more expensive for them and after breeze we just keep workers and workers make a lot of extra money through over time to write necessarily happy ... so when you say that that you know as wages go up in time that that workers actually have more choices ... of where to go ... um you well yes and no I mean it kind of depends what your skill set is what you're willing to do I went to several other high-tech areas and talk to workers there and a lot of content to just follow where people from their home province went so ... you know maybe they're not making as much money somewhere else I'm in a different factory that will stay there because they have other you know other friends or family around ... on the people that a Foxconn IPO at the same issues that there's a lot of with the cauldron by its lakes are ... you the Humane channels that on the people who follow and that's actually something that saw was this prayer with them it's way that workers can decide where to go ... ok and at ... home ... you know when when ... I we decided to go up we are seeing certain manufactures pulling some manufacturing out of time into other countries ... on ... what is the trend and and and if it's still going on and at what rate ... yet when you talk to people in the industry and other analysts what they say is that you know the ... electronics I December we started in a manufacturing base in China is so large ... and experiences said teepee been doing this for ten plus years ... that is not going to leave anytime soon in a really strong appreciable way a lot of factors have moved in when he came in China ... but the same time were starting to see signs that some some companies are taking some factories away for instance Foxconn has factories in Vietnam they factories in Mexico their opening factories in Brazil ... and part of that is Libor Spence is but another thing is also just getting the products to your final Markit ... Silvio to build a factory in Mexico it's you know peri peri easier ... to just dump the products on ... you know in a training center bringing to the United States is close to putting them on that on a tanker that has to go across the sector to Ocean City the number of considerations there ... the latex question will stay in China for a while but the interesting see signs that I've that it's moving elsewhere ... and I I remember interviewing for manufacturers saying that you can really beat the efficiency of time in Asia ... academic allow ... banks and lets all that measure joining us from Beijing for more than straight down at the beest dot com for